in-laws. kids. christmas. marriage. vacation. these are a few of the payneful memories we share.
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Sunday, August 26, 2007

Growth Chart for Breastfed Babies

After Margaret's comment, I went searching for the growth charts for breastfed babies. Here's the one for boys:

According to this, Samuel is actually a little above the curve that follows his birth weight. Whew, I must say I feel a little better now. If anyone is interested in seeing more, or in seeing the girl's chart, check on KellyMom.com.

9 comments:

That's really interesting - thanks for posting it. I just took the philosophy of not even taking Lydia to the doctor or getting her weighed at all :) But, it's nice to see growth charts for breastfed babies! Hey are you still nursing Samuel?

great find Leah! I'll look up the girl one. I'm excited to see where Laney falls. But hands down, Samuel is SUCH a healthy baby and LOOKS like such a healthy baby too. No worries friend. Not to mention, one of the cutest little boys I've ever seen. :)

Ruth,If Samuel is still nursing when the new baby comes, then yes, I will be nursing both. A lot of things I've read/heard say that when the milk changes to colostrum, a lot of kids are turned off by it and won't nurse. We'll see what happens...

BTW, I know a lot of people (especially certain friends of mine) are really not into this, so I'm not planning on being too outrageous with it. Even now, I just nurse Samuel when he's extra fussy or when he's going to sleep. I don't plan on nursing him whenever, wherever, with him running around and then lifting up my shirt to eat. I am totally supportive of other moms for doing this, but it's not for me.

I nursed Meredith too while pregnant and didn't have any trouble at all. I would have tandem nursed too, except she weaned herself a couple weeks ago when I was about 4 months along. I've read that pregnancy (not just colostrum) can change the taste of your milk so maybe that is what happened with her. I'll never know I guess. Still, she hasn't missed it once and hasn't asked for it once time. So, I feel the timing was fine. Anyway, glad to put your mind at ease some with the breastfed growth charts. I wish doctors made those things more public. Oh well!

I know I'm late getting in on this comment string, but thought I'd add my two cents anyway...I was still nursing Mary when I got pregnant with Bobby (she was 10 mos. old,) and one of the ways I realized I was pregnant was that she just suddenly refused to nurse anymore. Just literally, one day, she started to nurse, pulled off, looked at me like she was really puzzled, tried again, and then just quit. She was definitely hungry, but wouldn't nurse. We had to go out and buy formula because we didn't have any, and she wouldn't drink it from a bottle, either--it had to be in a sippy cup. I had to pump for a few days, doing it less and less until my milk dried up. I couldn't figure out what was going on until about a week later, when I started craving guacamole...but that's another story. Also--my older sister nursed all three of her older kids well into her pregnancies with the next child. Each of them self-weaned at about the 6-to-7-months-pregnant mark, without her trying to wean them. She was hoping to keep nursing, it just didn't work out. So I think every baby is different, and it also depends on how much you want to push it. I mean, if you refuse to give them anything else, then maybe eventually they'll nurse, but you have to decide if it's worth it.